Nil Unlocked Page 4

  He looked at me. “I’m the first to tell you I don’t understand how he got there, and as a scientist, it’s baffling. Maddening. Almost incomprehensible. But I firmly believe Giraffe Land exists. And”—his expression was as fierce and protective as I’d ever seen—“now you know why I’ve always driven you to be strong. To be resourceful. To be prepared in the event of any sort of catastrophe. So that if you—God forbid—find yourself on that island, you are as equipped to survive as you can be.”

  A long moment passed.

  “The true name of the island is Nil,” he said quietly. “And I think I know where to find it.”

  CHAPTER

  5

  RIVES

  DAY 241, MID-AFTERNOON

  Ahmad took point.

  He outpaced us quickly, which wasn’t surprising given his long stride. Behind Ahmad, Jillian and Jason bantered the whole way to the Cove. I dropped back, intent on filtering the island silence. Trees whispered, their leaves restlessly answering the island breeze. The closer we got to the Cove, the lusher the trees. Bright blue sky flickered through the canopy, a cerulean ceiling free of white.

  Past the trees, the Cove broke wide open.

  Crisp, clean water fell seven stories into a pristine pool as cold as ice. Black rock, green moss. White water. Blue sky. A photojournalist’s wet dream for sure. Not that I had my lens.

  “Follow me!” Ahmad waded into the clear pool, elbows high, white froth pooling around his dark waist as he headed straight to the falls. At the final second, he ducked and disappeared under the churning water.

  I turned to Jillian and Jason. “You two stay here. Keep watch. Whistle three times if you need us.” I wasn’t sure we’d hear a whistled warning, but it was worth a shot. I always felt vulnerable behind the falls because I couldn’t see what was waiting for me when I came out.

  “Ugh.” Jillian rolled her eyes. “Fine. We’ll stay put. But don’t keep us in suspense.”

  Jason nodded. “We’re on it. Just watch your back. And Ahmad’s.” He crossed his arms, his expression both fierce and anxious.

  Grinning, I squeezed his shoulder. “Don’t worry, bro. Like you said, it’s got to be good, right?”

  Jillian snorted. “Don’t answer that, Jason. Rives, just be safe.”

  “Always.” With a wink at Jillian, I strode into the pool after Ahmad, gritting my teeth against the icy bite. When the water hit my waist, I switched to freestyle, covered the distance to the falls quickly, and dove. The sound dulled, muffled underwater. The light dimmed, too, but the darkness told me where to go.

  I surfaced into cool air. Water roared at my back like a freight train. In front of me, where there used to be a wide ledge at least eight meters wide, now there was a narrow lip butting against a rockslide. Beyond that, an opening beckoned, partially blocked by rocks.

  “Check it out!” Ahmad said, raising his voice over the sound of the falls. “I don’t know how far or how deep it is. I didn’t go in. I wasn’t about to get stuck.” He gestured to his nearly seven-foot self. “But you don’t need to go in to see it. Look.”

  I leaned toward the dark hole for a better look.

  It was another carving.

  A rough diamond shape about a meter tall, with a stick figure dead center. Beside it ran a vertical line, an arrow pointing to the sky. Or at least pointing to the top of the cave.

  There was nothing else.

  “What do you think?” Ahmad asked. He peered over my shoulder.

  “I don’t know,” I said, unsure what to think. All I knew was that I wanted a closer look.

  I hauled rocks away from the base to clear a larger opening. Beside me, Ahmad helped me keep the ledge clear. After I’d enlarged the opening enough for me to fit through easily, a thought struck. I leaned back on my heels and looked at Ahmad. “When you checked the Cove for slides, how did you know to look behind the falls?”

  Ahmad shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t know, man. I just—this is going to sound weird—but I felt pulled toward the falls. Like an urge to check the ledge.”

  It doesn’t sound weird, I thought. It sounds like Nil.

  I’d been more focused on the island than ever lately, acutely aware of all I didn’t understand. My desire to escape warred with my thirst for understanding. It’s why I’d spent hours at the Wall in recent weeks, counting the names, searching for patterns and clues, compelled to stare even as part of me ached to stay far away.

  And each day over the past few weeks I’d woken with a fierce sense of wanting, a sense that the island was urging me toward understanding. Maybe it was all in my head, but it felt real.

  For the past few weeks, I’d also been hearing Talla’s voice, especially when I was near water. I didn’t know what that meant. Probably that I was one day closer to bat-shit crazy.

  Ahmad stared at the carving like I stared at the Wall.

  “I thought I was going to find someone trapped.” His voice was thick. “I really did. And when I came up behind the falls and saw the rockslide and the opening—and it wasn’t more than a sliver, just enough to see the open space behind the rocks—I panicked. I was sure someone was stuck behind the rockslide. I shouted, my pulse racing like I’d just finished sprints, but all I heard was an echo. No answer. And I kept clearing rock like a machine. When I saw the carving through the opening, I relaxed. I can’t explain it.” He shrugged. “It’s like I knew no one was in there. That I could stop. Then I cleared off as much of the ledge as I could.”

  He laughed, a small one of disbelief. “I know it sounds weird.”

  “No weirder than passing out and waking up naked on an island that doesn’t exist,” I said.

  “Good point.” Ahmad chuckled, visibly relaxing.

  It was the second carving Ahmad had discovered near a rockslide.

  It couldn’t be a coincidence. Nothing here was a coincidence.

  Thad had always viewed the island as a person, as a living, breathing entity hell-bent on making our lives miserable and playing with us every step of the way. On the other hand, most people, like Charley and Jillian, just viewed the island as a hunk of rock, a place that existed where it shouldn’t.

  My view of Nil hung somewhere in the middle. More than a rock, possibly sentient. But evil? Intent on misery? I wasn’t sure, but my gut said no. Something told me that Nil was as alive as we were, or at least the force that brought us here was. It didn’t feel random, not to me. And it also didn’t feel evil.

  Harsh? Yeah.

  Cruel? Absolutely.

  But not always, because the island had definite moments of benevolence—although I viewed each island kindness with suspicion. Because if I had to pick one word to describe Nil, I wouldn’t pick evil. I’d pick calculating.

  And now Ahmad was two for two.

  I traced the diamond etching with one finger. Rough and shallow, the carving matched the exact shape of the island that Charley had sketched on her maps. Other than the arrow pointing north, there was nothing else carved into the wall.

  The diamond felt … unfinished.

  There must be more, I thought. More to this carving. More to this cave. More to this whole damn island. Maybe I just wanted there to be more, but there was only one way to find out.

  Be fearless, the waterfall crooned.

  “I’m going in,” I said.

  “What?” Ahmad’s eyes widened. “No way, Rives. You don’t know what’s in there. You don’t even have a light. What if the air inside is toxic? It’s a bad idea, man.”

  “The cave just opened up with the quake, Ahmad, so I doubt anything’s in there. And it’s been open long enough to vent, so I’m not worried about the air. I’ve been sitting here breathing it and I haven’t passed out yet.” I grinned. “Neither have you. Plus, I’m just going to go a little way. I want to make sure we’re not missing anything else.”

  “Don’t do it, man. Let’s wait. Not today.”

  “Definitely today. It’s the only today I’ve got, right?” I winke
d.

  A weighted silence dropped as flat as my joke.

  Ahmad shook his head. “I don’t like it, man.”

  “Point taken.”

  I was already climbing inside. Light faded with each step. Slightly bent, I moved slowly, feeling my way, touching both sides of the cave’s walls. Moisture clung to them like moss.

  The cave narrowed. Soon the walls brushed my sides. I still crouched, but the cave hadn’t pushed me to my knees. Yet.

  “Rives?” Ahmad’s voice echoed behind me.

  “Still here,” I called back.

  “Find anything?”

  “Not yet.”

  I moved farther into the cave, which now was more tunnel than cave. Behind me, a rough oval framed Ahmad’s silhouette. Before me the space loomed flat black, like an incoming gate with a rider, only the air ahead didn’t waver. Didn’t move. It was as if the cave was holding its breath, waiting for me.

  Then I felt it.

  On my left, a single arrow in the wall pointed away from the Cove.

  Come, it whispered.

  “Rives!” Ahmad’s voice shot through the tunnel, his tone faint and anxious. “You’re making me nervous, man.”

  Every cell in my body screamed to follow the arrow. But the worry in Ahmad’s voice made me pause. So did my role as Leader.

  The scrabble of rocks echoed through the tunnel, followed by a loud thunk and a muffled curse.

  “Rives?” Jason called. “You’re going to run out of daylight soon. You coming?” The pain in Jason’s voice made me turn back.

  I tapped the arrow. “I’m not done with you,” I said.

  Ahmad and Jason waited outside the entrance. When they saw me, their faces relaxed, a tell they couldn’t hide. But Jason’s didn’t relax completely. He gripped his left hand tightly with his right.

  I pointed at his hand. “What’d you do?”

  “Dropped a rock on it.” Jason looked disgusted. “Jammed my finger.”

  “Find anything?” Ahmad asked. “Or anyone?”

  “No people. No skeletons. No bad Indiana Jones moments at all.” I grinned. “I didn’t even find the end. It was pitch-black in there.”

  I wasn’t sure why I didn’t tell them about the arrow.

  Liar, the falls whispered. You know why.

  I did know. It was my discovery, my arrow, and I wanted to be the one to follow it. The urge to turn back toward the arrow was potent, but now wasn’t the time.

  Soon, I told myself.

  Jillian waited by the Cove’s edge.

  I pointed to Jason’s hand. “Jills, will you check out Jason’s finger? Says he jammed it.”

  Jillian’s mom was a physical therapist, specializing in orthopedic rehab, and her older brother was in med school. That made Jillian our resident expert in island medicine. As she gingerly felt his finger, Jason’s jaw tensed.

  “It’s broken,” she said flatly. “I’m sure of it. I did the same thing when I was eight.” She gestured to my waist. “I need your knife and bandana.”

  Two minutes later, she’d sliced the cloth into wide strips and carefully tied Jason’s middle two fingers together with a piece of bamboo in a makeshift splint.

  He lifted his bandaged hand to Jillian. “Thanks.” She waved it off.

  “No more gliders for you, Jason,” I said. “I promised Thad I’d keep you in one piece.” I grinned. “And don’t think I’m not telling Miya to keep you out of trouble.”

  Jason’s cheeks reddened. I grinned wider.

  I filled Jillian in on the walk back.

  “So it’s just a long tunnel?” Jillian frowned. “And it dead-ends?”

  “I don’t know where it ends, or how. It was pitch-black, and I was almost out of voice range with Ahmad. For all I know, it dead-ends into a wall.”

  Jillian played with one of her braids. Then she looked at me, her sapphire eyes sharp. “But you don’t think so, do you, Rives?”

  “No. I don’t think it’s a dead end. I think it leads somewhere, to something. Maybe to something important.”

  Jillian watched me thoughtfully. “Rives, promise me you won’t do something stupid.” Her eyes searched mine, her expression worried. “Promise me.”

  “I promise.” I reached over and tugged on one braid.

  She rolled her eyes. “Why don’t I feel better?”

  CHAPTER

  6

  SKYE

  NOVEMBER 16, MID-AFTERNOON

  “Nil,” I repeated. “What kind of name is that?”

  Dad rubbed his chin. “I’m not certain. But Scott references it by name in his journal.”

  “Dad, if Nil exists, why has no one heard of it? Why has no one found it before?”

  “Excellent questions. First, a few things. Scott didn’t fully understand the island himself. People arrive through portals and apparently leave the same way. There doesn’t seem to be any other avenue of escape. The portals—the teens called them gates—appeared in the lava fields a few times a month, always at midday, and sometimes somewhere else. There weren’t that many people on the island. Scott guessed twenty on average, twenty-five at most, from all over the globe. So I’m guessing that perhaps one person arrives each week, possibly two. Extrapolate that and you have approximately fifty-two people per year, 104 at the most. Compare that to lightning. Lightning strikes kill approximately twenty-four thousand people around the world each year. And about two hundred forty thousand globally are injured by lightning. Based on those numbers, the odds of being struck by lightning, let alone killed, are incredibly small. There are over seven billion people in the world, Skye. So put the island against that global backdrop. The odds of hearing about a few dozen or even a hundred people going to some remote island is almost nonexistent.” He paused. “Plus, according to Scott, only teenagers made it to the island. And unfortunately, the disappearance of a teen spurs less interest than, say, a child gone missing or an adult. A sad truth, but a truth nonetheless.”

  I shivered.

  “And don’t forget,” he said, “I know it doesn’t seem like it to you, but the World Wide Web connecting the globe is relatively new. So until news searches were available at the click of a Google button, it was up to people sifting through papers and microfilm in libraries. I haven’t made strides myself until the last few years.”

  “Really? You’ve ‘made strides’?” I couldn’t help making air quotes around his words. “How?”

  “This.” He tapped a group of papers tacked at eye level. “Over the past ten years, I’ve tracked every news story I could find about teenagers appearing naked in odd places, because according to Scott’s journal, everyone arrives on the island nude, and based on his experience, when they return, they wake in the same bare state.”

  Do they always find clothes? I wondered. It seemed a small point, but I’d seen an ad for the television show Naked and Afraid, and the naked guy on TV was the scariest thing I’d seen in a while. Plus being naked on an island sounded like an absolute nightmare.

  “There aren’t many stories,” he continued, oblivious to my naked-and-afraid horror, “but the few I’ve found stand out. Only one mentions an island, but the articles tell me it’s still happening.” He walked over to the massive map of the South Pacific.

  “As you know, I’ve traveled extensively to the South Pacific. I’ve spoken to hundreds of islanders and collected volumes of anecdotal information. I’ve been putting together the pieces for twenty years, Skye. But the big break came last year, in Micronesia. My guide—Charles, the one who hailed from Tuvalu—spoke of a place. Here.” His hands traced an invisible circle on the map and stopped at a yellow tack in the center. “Spirit Island, his grandmother called it, a place of magic and mystery only accessed by a select few.”

  Dad turned toward me, his expression resolute. “And this December I’m going to find it.”

  “What do you mean, ‘I’m going to find it’?” Something felt off, like I was late to the party. Not that I went to parties, but sti
ll.

  “I’m heading to Micronesia at the start of winter break. I’ve got a charter booked and ready. I’ll be gone for roughly two weeks.”

  I processed his words. There were an awful lot of I’s. “I’m going with you, right?”

  He shook his head. “It’s too remote. Too dangerous. You’ll stay with your mom.”

  “No can do, Dad.” I fought a winning smile. “Mom’s not coming home for Christmas, remember? She’s not coming back to the States until spring break.”

  Dad’s expression said he’d totally forgotten, which wasn’t surprising. His organization was bad on a good day, and with Mom’s surprise departure, Dad was a full-blown parental mess.

  “Your mom’s not coming back until spring break,” he repeated slowly. It was an old trick he used, buying time to think. “Right.” He smiled too brightly. “I’ll call my sister. I’m sure you could stay with Aunt Meg and the twins. I’ll be gone for less than two weeks. More like twelve days and—”

  “Stop.” I cut him off with a wave. “I’m not staying with Aunt Meg. I’m going with you. End of story. You can’t just shuffle me off with your sister because you forgot I’d be here.”

  He winced. “I’m not shuffling you off. I’m trying to keep you safe.”

  “Bullcrap, Dad. You forgot, plain and simple. You made plans and now you’re stuck. I’m coming with you.”

  “What about Tish?” Dad’s tone was desperate.

  “What about Tish?” I said flatly. Tish was my best friend back in Gainesville. I knew where he was headed, but I refused to make it easy.

  “Perhaps you could stay with her?” His upbeat tone pleaded for a yes.

  I crossed my arms. “So I can’t stay with Tish to finish out my senior year in Gainesville, but I can go spend the entire Christmas break with her? How messed up is that?” Two months ago I would’ve jumped at the chance to hang with Tish for two weeks. Now it felt like a consolation prize. I stared at my dad, unwilling to back down.

  He flinched first.

  “No,” I said calmly. “No Aunt Meg, no Tish.” No ditching me like Mom. “Book another ticket because I’m coming with you. And in case you’ve forgotten”—I took care to emphasize that last word—“I’m pretty good at taking care of myself. Isn’t that what you’ve worked so hard to make sure of all these years?”